If we can build 60,000 houses a year, then let’s do it

HOUSING is this generation’s emigration and unemployment. Previously, our society had to deal with the twin scourges of people leaving Ireland because they had no jobs.

We now have a situation where members of our society are choosing to spend years abroad contributing to the economic life of other countries, in the hope of being able to save to secure their dream of buying their own homes in Ireland.

They are teachers, doctors, nurses, engineers, construction workers – all part of a skills drain at a time when the depth of the talent pool is a key selling point to prospective foreign direct investors.

The lack of housing brings that systemic risk back to our economy, in that every part of our thriving society abuts the need for accommodation, preferably close to the workplace. The industries we rely on to create the open and progressive economy that we are proud of require accommodation. More importantly, the society that we wish to be – one that cares for its most vulnerable, one that provides opportunities for all of its children – necessitates a dramatic shift in mindset to deal with the gargantuan political challenge that housing has become.

This reality has been clear for many years now. The Coalition – and its previous iteration under the confidence and supply agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil – has struggled for far too long to tackle the twin housing crises of availability and affordability, and seems blithely oblivious to the fact that, as we saw this week, foreign investment funds continue to swoop in to buy entire housing estates meant for private sale but now destined to enter the rental pool.

A full eight years on, after the electorate issued the verdict that housing was of crucial importance to the nation, we still don’t appear to have a Government that is able to get to grips with the issues at hand.

Yes, houses are being built at an increasing rate, but that rate is still nowhere close to satisfying demand. Today, we reveal the Taoiseach’s revised housing targets for this year and the years to come, and while they are welcome, we cannot help but think they represent a distinct lack of ambition.

Our coverage also points out that, for the first time, the Construction Industry Federation believes the capacity is there to build up to 60,000 houses annually.

We have often heard our political masters, in their various guises, insisting that there is no silver bullet, no overnight solution, to the problem of housing. This newspaper has been covering the matter for so long that we have reported on Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien using the sort of phrases that, when he was in opposition before the 2020 election, he dismissed as ‘weasel words’.

The fact is that Irish electors are a very astute and discerning bunch, and what they are looking for is radical action that delivers necessary change in the approach to tackling the underlying problems in the under-supply of housing, to put it baldly.

If we can build 60,000 houses a year, then let the Government elected by the people move heaven and earth to achieve that goal.

If capacity is no longer an obstacle, then the question becomes one of political will, and if there is not that will in this Coalition, then it runs the risk of being replaced, and allowing populism in through the back door.